Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Too Brave to Dream: Encounters with Modern Art
    Too Brave to Dream: Encounters with Modern Art
    Too Brave to Dream: Encounters with Modern Art
    Ebook141 pages54 minutes

    Too Brave to Dream: Encounters with Modern Art

    By R. S. Thomas

    3/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    When R.S. Thomas died in 2000, two seminal studies of modern art were found on his bookshelves – Herbert Read's Art Now (1933/1948) and Surrealism (1936), edited by Read and containing essays by key figures in the Surrealist movement. Some three dozen previously unknown poems handwritten by Thomas were later discovered between the pages of the two books, poems written in response to a selection of the many reproductions of modern art in the Read volumes, including works by Henry Moore, Edvard Munch, George Grosz, Salvador Dalí, René; Magritte and Graham Sutherland – many of whom were Thomas's near contemporaries. These poems are published here for the first time – alongside the works of modern art that inspired them.

    Thomas's readings of these often unsettling images demonstrate a willingness to confront, unencumbered by illusions, a world in which old certainties have been undermined. Personal identity has become a source of anguish, and relations between the sexes a source of disquiet and suspicion. Thomas’s vivid engagements with the works of art produce a series of dramatic encounters haunted by the recurring presence of conflict and by the struggle of the artist who, in a frequently menacing world, is 'too brave to dream'. At times we are offered an unflinching vision of 'a landscape God / looked at once and from which / later he withdrew his gaze'.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloodaxe Books
    Release dateSep 29, 2016
    ISBN9781780373089
    Too Brave to Dream: Encounters with Modern Art

    Read more from R. S. Thomas

    Related to Too Brave to Dream

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Big Screen

      May 3, 2019

      The Big Screen
      16 min read

    • Article

      Fog Poem Number 71

      Apr 5, 2022

      Fog Poem Number 71
      1 min read

    • Article

      Remembering Women

      Jun 22, 2021

      Remembering Women
      8 min read

    • Article

      John Akomfrah, On the Verge

      Dec 19, 2018

      John Akomfrah, On the Verge
      9 min read

    • Article

      Frida Escobedo

      Mar 10, 2020

      Frida Escobedo
      9 min read

    • Article

      In Search of the Real Hannah Crafts

      Jul 26, 2024

      In Search of the Real Hannah Crafts
      13 min read

    • Article

      Seeds of Change

      Sep 14, 2021

      Seeds of Change
      6 min read

    • Article

      A Few Signs of Life

      Mar 27, 2023

      A Few Signs of Life
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Marxist Emperor

      Jan 3, 2019

      The Marxist Emperor
      6 min read

    • Article

      Making Worlds

      Dec 7, 2021

      Making Worlds
      10 min read

    • Article

      Asghar Farhadi

      Jun 24, 2018

      Asghar Farhadi
      20 min read

    • Article

      Kate Braverman Is Dead

      Apr 5, 2022

      Kate Braverman Is Dead
      19 min read

    • Article

      The Act of Living

      Sep 14, 2020

      The Act of Living
      18 min read

    • Article

      Artificial Splendor: A Trio by Jacques Demy

      Jun 1, 2021

      THE FILMMAKER Jacques Demy came of age artistically in the early Sixties, shortly after his compatriots François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard initiated the French New Wave with The 400 Blows, Breathless, and Shoot the Piano Player in 1959 and 1960. Y

      11 min read

    • Article

      Queer Bubbles

      Jul 6, 2017

      Queer Bubbles
      7 min read

    • Article

      Elp

      Jun 21, 2024

      Elp
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Living Mandelstam

      May 1, 2020

      It is common for English-language accounts of Mandelstam’s life to begin with an account of his death. Consider the first sentence of a twosentence biography that appeared in The New York Review of Books in 2016 to preface a translation by Andrew Dav

      13 min read

    • Article

      For A Cinema Of Bombardment

      Sep 20, 2019

      For A Cinema Of Bombardment
      11 min read

    • Article

      Editor’s Note

      Jun 27, 2022

      It’s that time again. Over the last two decades in these pages I’ve spent way too much time (at great personal anguish) trying to come to grips with the experience of the Festival de Cannes even if by this point in the history of film journalism, a f

      2 min read

    • Article

      In Finland, a WWII Film Epic Spurs Praise, Introspection

      Jan 4, 2018

      'The Unknown Soldier' has been seen by more than 940,000 Finns. Some of that is due to its cinematic grandeur. But some is also due to the sober look it takes at Finland's bygone war with its powerful neighbor, even as Russia reasserts her military p

      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Too Brave to Dream

    3/5

    1 rating0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Too Brave to Dream - R. S. Thomas

      R.S. THOMAS

      TOO BRAVE TO DREAM

      Encounters with Modern Arts

      Edited by Tony Brown & Jason Walford Davies

      When R.S. Thomas died in 2000, two seminal studies of modern art were found on his bookshelves – Herbert Read’s Art Now (1933/1948) and Surrealism (1936), edited by Read and containing essays by key figures in the Surrealist movement. Some three dozen previously unknown poems handwritten by Thomas were discovered between the pages of the two books, poems written in response to a selection of the many reproductions of modern art in the Read volumes, including works by Henry Moore, Edvard Munch, George Grosz, Salvador Dalí, René Magritte and Graham Sutherland – many of whom were Thomas’s near contemporaries. These poems are published here for the first time – alongside the works of modern art that inspired them.

      Thomas’s readings of these often unsettling images demonstrate a willingness to confront, unencumbered by illusions, a world in which old certainties have been undermined. Personal identity has become a source of anguish, and relations between the sexes a source of disquiet and suspicion. Thomas’s vivid engagements with the works of art produce a series of dramatic encounters haunted by the recurring presence of conflict and by the struggle of the artist who, in a frequently menacing world, is ‘too brave to dream’. At times we are offered an unflinching vision of ‘a landscape God / looked at once and from which / later he withdrew his gaze’.

      COVER PAINTING:

      Gorse on a Sea Wall (1939) by Graham Sutherland

      Collection National Museums Northern Ireland

      by permission of the artist’s estate © DACS 2015

      Manuscript of poem written in response to

      Shelter Drawing by Henry Moore (see page 36)

      R.S. THOMAS

      TOO BRAVE TO DREAM

      ENCOUNTERS WITH MODERN ART

      EDITED BY TONY BROWN

      & JASON WALFORD DAVIES

      I Nancy, Sara ac Alys [TB]

      ac er cof am Tilly Davies (1912–1984)

      a Bertie Davies (1901–1986) [JWD]

      CONTENTS

      Title Page

      Dedication

      Tony Brown & Jason Walford Davies: Introduction

      Editors’ Note

      Poems to artworks in Herbert Read, Art Now: An Introduction to the Theory of Modern Painting and Sculpture

      Henri Matisse: Odalisque with a Turkish Chair

      She is the mistress…

      André Derain: Portrait of the Artist

      I   No self-portrait…

      II  Capturing his astonishment…

      Oskar Kokoschka: The Wind’s Bride

      This wind had nowhere…

      Henry Moore: Shelter Drawing

      Hand clenched…

      Edvard Munch: House in Aasgaardstrand

      The emptiness…

      George Grosz: Restaurant Scene

      ‘Really?’ ‘Garçon…

      Édouard Pignon: La Catalane

      Is that a tear?…

      Jankel Adler: David

      When the evil spirit…

      Gabriel Robin: The Hearth

      Have you seen a face…

      William Roberts: The Dressmakers

      I return to it…

      Gaston-Louis Roux: Woman with Flowers

      All round her flowers…

      Graham Sutherland: Gorse on a Sea Wall

      Gorse is gorse…

      Floris Jespers: The Colombophil

      Numerous and…

      Eugène Berman: Evening in Venice

      The gondolas have vanished…

      Paul Berçot: Birth of the Siren

      Existing so long…

      Pavel Tchelitchew: The Bathers

      We cannot compare…

      René Magritte: La gravitation universelle

      I   He was mistaken…

      II  He is part…

      Paul Delvaux: La prisonnière

      It is the time of her moon…

      Salvador Dalí: Naissance des désirs liquides

      The man with sand in his ears…

      Matta: Les vertiges d’Eros

      Open to everything…

      Roland Penrose: Les Musiciens Ambulants

      The arrested son…

      Poems to artworks in Surrealism, edited by Herbert Read

      Salvador Dalí: Daybreak

      The one has an upset…

      Salvador Dalí: La profanation de l’hostie

      It was because Caliban…

      Salvador Dalí: Suburbs of the Paranoiac-critical Town

      Holding the grapes out…

      René Magritte: La reconnaissance infinie

      It is the story…

      Grace W. Pailthorpe: Ancestors II

      According to this…

      Pablo Picasso: Interior with Girl Drawing

      I   The moustached eye…

      II  Not cheeks any more…

      Man Ray: Object

      His genius…

      Jindřich Štyrský: Man Fed on Ice

      Representative man…

      Yves Tanguy: Terre d’ombre

      Yes, I suppose…

      Yves Tanguy: The Flight of the Dukes

      It is fitting that…

      Yves Tanguy: The Extinction of the Species

      Full of figures…

      Toyen: Hlas lesa

      Owl, you cry…

      APPENDICES

      Poem written in response to a greetings card inserted at the back of Art Now.

      Henri Le Sidaner: Au Café

      No people. Tables…

      Uncropped artworks

      Henry Moore: Shelter Drawing

      Salvador Dalí: Suburbs of the Paranoiac-critical Town

      Notes

      Editors’ Notes on the Poems

      Acknowledgements

      Copyright

      INTRODUCTION

      When, several years after R.S. Thomas’s death in 2000, the home he had shared with his second wife, Betty, was sold, what was left of the poet’s personal library was acquired by the R.S.

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1